My almost 5 weekers are TROOPERS!!

[Mahonri]

Those are some beauties.

 

[DawnSuiter]

Thank you Mahonri.

These babies are my first BBS chicks bred & hatched here 'on the farm, it's been very fun.

 

[evonne]

Quote:
not to hijack the thread, but i'm in vegas and we've had that exact same weather, and my 6 chicks were hatched oct 29...
they've been outside for 2 nights now with no heat and no problems... the first night they were actually in a dog crate with a fleece blantet over to keep out the draft.. they didn't even pile up.. there were 3 on the roost, and 3 on the floor.. not seperate, but not huddled...
yesterday i let them loose with the banties and they went into the banty house with them by themselves in the evening so i left them there... tonight i let them free range, and they still went back to the banty house to sleep... i had 1/2 of ice in their water bowl this morning, so it was cold, but they did fine with no heat lamp... aas long as there's enough of them to keep warm they should be fine...

keep in mind though, if hte coop is huge, big enough for you to walk into, they may not have enough body heat to warm up the coop... my banty house is like 2'x4' and something silly like 10" high at the back and 2' tall at the front... rofl.. yeah.. it's ugly.. but they like it...

if you can put heat safely out there if it's a bigger coop, you might want to do it for a few weeks....
if you can't do it safely, keep fire hazards in mind... then maybe you can rig up a temp smaller area in there and cover it like i had done with the dog crate... so it can keep their body heat in at night...

also, have you been taking them outside during the day??? you may want to start with a few hours at a time during the day when it's colder than the house, but not as chilly at night... i did that with mine for 3 days... i tried to leave them out at day 2, but they stood at the door of the crate whining at me so i brought them back in.. by day 3 they decided outside was fun...

*puts thread back on track*

grats on your babies growing up and running away from the heat... does your lamp get a break now, or do you have another set ready for it?? lol... i've noticed i can't keep chicks out of hte house.. no matter what i do... i send some out and holy crap.. when did i put more eggs in the bator... lol...
good luck with the rest of their transition..

 

[gsim]

They look to be well-feathered enough to go to the coop now. Good to have a heat source there for them if they want it. Good if there is enough space if they want away from it too. Tractor supply sells those in 75 w and 250 w sizes. Did you have roosts for them while they were in the house? Seems I see posts where chooks new to coop just cannot figure out roosts and sleep on floors, etc. I did mine that way and they rarely use the ladders in the coop. BTW, we are located in W Knox co. It is going to get cold tonight, maybe in 20's they say.

 

[Kansaseq]

Beautiful babies, Dawn. You should be proud.

 

[joebryant]

Dawn, for being five weeks old, your chicks have feathered out beautifully. You have a really nice line of bbs Orpingtons, and these pictures illustrate the fact. Please keep us updated with pictures.

 

[DawnSuiter]

thank you evonne, gsmin, kansaseq & joebryant!!

Evonne, funny you mention that, I was just dreaming last night about whose eggs I should collect next! But it is supposed to be a blustery winter and these guys are going to be living in the only place I have to brood over the winter.

Gsim, Here is where they will live until late winter/early spring

Our new and improved back porch brooder. There is no coop for them to go to, in the spring they will integrate with the older chickens in the appropriate pens. It's well roofed, and the screen walls are now plastic on the outside (and on the inside on the bottom portion too). I'm going to be using the deep litter method back here as it'll be easier than using sand as I do everywhere else.

Thanks Kansaseq & JoeBryant, I sure am very proud. These are the babies of chicks I got from BamaChicken and some I got this year from Gilman Farms. I was hoping for one or two splash, had one barely hatch but not make it... one of those first to pip, last to zip with 3 days in between...

 

[evonne]

dawn, i clicked over to your website last night, it looks great... i wish i had that lvl of computer skills... and your farm for that matter.. lol...

i may have to use your little balaster mini-coop plans for some of my heathens... thanx for posting all of that for us to share

 

[DawnSuiter]

Quote:
Thank you for visiting my site, and letting me know that you liked it! It means a lot, because it's the very first website I've gotten to build that totally just reflects me and how I want things to be. I've been designing websites & print ads for around 10 years now, so the skills didn't come easy or anything. But I am self taught, and then was lucky enough to apprentice with some very talented folks over the years. I'm still working on the coop pages, just put up the page for Lexi's Bantam Coop today in fact.

The "farm" is a work in progress... we just finished moving 3 coops over to the other side of the yard where they will stay for the winter. They are going to take care of our corn patch and then come spring we'll move them out and till the soil & plant. It's a fantastic way to do it, and we're always learning.

I love the little mini-coop... I still have to convert it for winter, probably this week coming up and move one more cockerel into his winter home, or the freezer, I haven't yet decided which

. It's really economical and works well... converting it for winter will mean adding plywood & a tarp, not much at all.

Enjoy yourself first and foremost, it'll all fall into place after that!

 

[~*Sweet Cheeks*~]

Your chicks are real beauties. What kind are they? (Don't know what BBS is).